Alternative LearningAre you a homeschooling mama? or maybe you unschool... or maybe you are interested in another alternative learning style? or maybe you don't have any idea what i am referring to?? this forum might just be for you! share your thoughts and ideas
Dd is 5, will be 6 in april and she still cannot read. I don't know how to teach her. She loves for me to read books to her and I do and she memorizes them fast but she cannot actually read. She is good with math and her handwriting skills are excellent (she can write if I spell but her handwriting is beautiful and she knows allk the letters both upper and lower case and has already taught herself cursive), she counts to 1000 without hesitating at all, you know?
How can I teach her to read? Book recommendations please? I need to know how to teach her to read. She wants to read but sh elikes numbers and artsy stuff more, KWIM? I cannot afford to buy a whole curriculum or anything but if I can get it at the library it's all good! I just need to know HOW to teach her.
Help please?
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She knows upper and lower case but we are having difficulty on all teh sounds. She knows SOME of the sounds butnot many, I'd say less than half of the letters' sounds.
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Some food for thought
Someone asked my dh (he is an educator) this same question recently and he said that studies have shown that some kids are not ready to read until 3rd grade and that our society is pushing kids to learn to read to early.
Just wanted to give you that little bit of info to help you realize that it might just be a normal thing for her and many other kiddos.
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Originally posted by APmommyCarrie Thanks Elizabeth.
She knows upper and lower case but we are having difficulty on all teh sounds. She knows SOME of the sounds butnot many, I'd say less than half of the letters' sounds.
I'd wait until she knows all the letter sounds before starting Phonics Pathway.
Knowing the letters and half the sounds is pretty good for her age!
Maybe she isn't ready yet. The main reason for getting kids to read at the same time in public school is to get them all on the same track and streamline the education process...it has less to do with the individual child than it does the schooling method itself.
My son is four and is beginning to read. A friend's son is 7 and isn't even thinking about reading yet. They are both very bright children. They are just different.
We do a child-led thing...so I'm more likely to lean toward saying she isn't ready. However, you know your child best. For instance, I am dyslexic but no one knew until I took played lab rat for a class trying to find hidden learning disabilities. I taught myself to read when I was 3...so I learned to read around the dyslexia. BUT I was unable to learn around my tendency to also flip numbers. 34? 43? There's no way to know what it's supposed to be.
So, I'd take your cues from your daughter. If she is frustrated because she feels she should read and can't, that may be a clue that there is something else going on. If she's happy with her progress and her abilities, I'd just give her time to do it on her own.
My husband is a teacher and frequently says that no one is ever "taught" to do anything. They only achieve what they want to acheive when they are able to achieve it.
Originally posted by JennyC My husband is a teacher and frequently says that no one is ever "taught" to do anything. They only achieve what they want to acheive when they are able to achieve it.
I agree 100% with this, and would add "and how they want to achieve it."
Wow! Thank You for the replies! I really had no idea--I was sitting here feeling bad that she hasn't even begun to read and can not seem to rememebr the letter sounds and thinking I am failing her but--it might just be that she is not ready. It makes sense, it really does. I was feeling pretty inadequate, people around me have been making me feel that as well (I know I shouldn't let that happen but I couldn't help but wonder maybe they were right...).
I still am not sure HOW to teach her though? I excelled at reading. Reading, English, Literature, I was great at all of them and I just don't know how to help her learn, KWIM? But I am thinking htat for now maybe I should just let it lay for a bit. She seems like wants to read, she tells me I need to teach her to read and I have tried with the letter sounds and such but is that really where I start? Oh well, we will work on it slowly. I've not pushed her on any of this and I don't plan to but Dh has been getting worried about the fact that she can't read--but she CAN do so many other things! Oh, the stress! lol! I am thinking she'll be fine though, she is a smart cookie and she will do it when she is ready, that is her personality!
Thanks for setting me a little more at ease with this.
I say, let your dd lead you. My dd really wanted to read. BAD! By 3 she had all her letters and most sounds. She tried to read, and got fustrated. By 4 she had all her sounds. Tried to read again, NOPE. She wanted to look at a word and just know it! Instant reading. But, her brain wasn't quite ready for that. She had various spurts where she learned and read a bit, but it was never enough to satisfy her. So, we totally backed off. Instead, we worked on math and science. She is just flying both! Years ahead of age. Recently, she asked again to try reading. I decided to try a different approach. I got the book: Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. She must have been ready this time, cause we are flying through the book and she's reading in leaps and bounds. A 20 minute lesson takes us maybe 10 minutes and she's mastered it! So, just follow your dd. If reading isn't were her brain is ready to develop, try a different subject.
Nico will be 6 in April, and she is not reading yet either.... I agree that every child has their own timeframe.
One game I played with Nico to help her remember letter sounds was to give her a basket and ask her to find three things that start with any given letter. It was a fun and active game, and if we only did 3 or 4 letters a day, at varios times, it stuck with her.
Actually, Nico is doing way better at writing right now then she is at reading. She doesn't spell everything right, but she is amazingly close most of the time. After reading stories, or going on field trips, I have her draw a few pictures about what we've done and then write a few sentences. She loves this!
Don't sweat it, Carrie! She will be readin when it is her time!!
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Oaky, I am atually feeling much better about this now. I guess I am not failing her, whew!
Marcey, thank you for sharing your and Hadyn's experience--I am going to check out that book though and maybe we will try here and there, I found it for a relatively decent price on Amazon so I might just buy it. I figure we can try a little, if she is not ready we will put it away. She wants top read so bad as well, it upsets her when I let her play around on fun stuff on the computer (like nick jr and Alfy on Lyos) and she has to keep calling me over to read the diretions or to read the headers so she can go and do the activity she wants. It breaks my heart.
Yesterday evening though, she showed me that she DOES know almost all the letter sounds, not less than half as I thought (which is what she showed before) and she is familiar with the fact that sometimes e is silent. Where did all that come from, lol! So she might be ready? We will just have to see, I am going to the library tomorrow to see if they have that book to tide me over until I an purhase it.
Thanks for all the advice Mamas, I do feel better, I don't feel like such a failure and I am feeling much less stressed about this whih I am sure will help a lot.
Thank You!
*edited to add*
Meeshi, you posted while I was typing! lol! Thank you as well. We do a letter of the day thing and we draw pictures of things that start with that letter and point out things all day that begin with that letter, she thinks it's pretty fun. I am feeling a lot less stressed now though, I'm feelin all right about htis now. She will; read when she is ready. She an write her first middle and last names without asking me to spel them and she sounds out the letters when she writes them. She an also write Adrian's name and Daddy but she has trouble with Mommy--she gets M and N mixed up a little bit still.
All in time, right? She is so smart so I should not worry about her, I knew that but I couldn't help it though. I guess it is just societal pressure. Sigh.
Last edited by APmommyCarrie : 02-13-2004 at 01:31 PM.
Haven't read through any of the replies, so forgive me if it's repeating anything.
Maybe she's just not ready! Most kids don't really learn to read until they're 7/8 yrs old. Of course there are exceptions. I would just let it go for now, and retry later. My first born was like that and I thought *I* was a failure because he couldn't read when he was 5
I agree with the others who said that each child is different and your dd will learn when she is ready. I learned to read when I was 4, but my brother and sister did not learn until they were both 6. My parents didn't do anything different with us (my mom read us all a book before bedtime every night). I just really wanted to learn to read those books myself.
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